him
convey a small quantity of it into the food of the monk. Almost
immediately thereafter, the monk, not aware of the medicine, noted an
extremely rapid improvement.

Van Helmont related other cures. For example, a laundress who had a
"megrim" [migraine] for sixteen years was cured by partaking of some
olive oil, into a spoonful of which Butler dipped the stone. Other cures
for which van Helmont vouched included a man who was exceedingly fat; he
touched the stone every morning with the tip of his tongue and very
speedily lost weight. Van Helmont's own wife was cured of a marked
edema of the leg. Similarly, a servant maid who had had severe attacks
of erysipelas which were "badly cured," and the leg leaden colored and
swollen, was cured almost immediately. An abbess, whose arm had been
swollen for eighteen years, partly paralyzed, was also cured. Van
Helmont, however, indicates that he himself, when he thought he was
being poisoned by an enemy, did not secure any benefit from the use of
the stone. Later, however, it turned out that, because of the nature of
the illness, he should have touched the stone with his tongue, to take
its virtue internally, rather than merely anointing the skin with oil
into which the stone had been dipped.

Van Helmont makes it very clear that this is not magic or sorcery; there
is no diabolic influence, no necromancy. He drew attention to the
overwhelming effects which might result from a cause which was so minute
that it could not be perceived by the senses. We cannot here go into the
theoretical background which underlay van Helmont's conceptions, but we
must mention at least briefly his idea of a basic mechanism. Van Helmont
considered the action to be that of a ferment, where an extremely minute
quantity can produce a tremendous effect. He gives the analogy of the
tooth of a mad dog, which, although any saliva has been carefully wiped
off, can nevertheless sometimes induce madness. The effect of the stone
seems to be comparable. Its power becomes manifest even in enormous
dilution and can multiply, for it can import its remedial virtue to a
vast quantity of oil. Moreover, the stone had a sort of universal power
against all diseases. Such a virtue could not be vegetable in its
nature, but was, he thought, connected with metals. He pointed to the
well-accepted medicinal virtues which inhered in gems. Metals also had
great medicinal potency. Antimony, lead, iron, mercury, were well known,